The latest data released by the General Administration of Customs of China on the 20th showed that the scale of trade between China and ASEAN has expanded rapidly in the past 20 years, from 876.38 billion yuan (RMB, the same below) in 2004 to 6.41 trillion yuan in 2023, with an average annual growth of 11%, and the proportion of China’s total foreign trade has increased from 9.2% in 2004 to 15.4% in 2023.
According to official statistics, in terms of industrial chain and supply chain cooperation, China’s import and export of intermediate products to ASEAN increased from 605.32 billion yuan in 2004 to 4.08 trillion yuan in 2023. In the first eight months of this year, China’s import and export of intermediate products to ASEAN was 2.84 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.6%. Among them, the import and export of intermediate products of electronic information products such as integrated circuits, flat panel display modules, computer parts and accessories, audio and video parts all showed double-digit growth, and the export growth rate of furniture parts, lamp parts, etc. exceeded 20%.
In terms of agriculture, ASEAN will be the second largest source of China’s agricultural product imports in 2023. Official data show that in the first eight months of this year, China imported 161.34 billion yuan of ASEAN agricultural products, of which dried and fresh fruits and edible aquatic products increased by 0.6% and 2.7% year-on-year respectively. ASEAN’s tropical fruits such as durian are very popular among Chinese consumers.
The Chinese Ministry of Commerce previously stated that the scale of China’s trade in goods with ASEAN has continued to expand, and the industrial chain and supply chain have been deeply integrated. In the future, it will support the expansion of trade in advantageous agricultural products and industrial products with ASEAN countries, and actively expand imports of advantageous and characteristic products from ASEAN countries.